The Residential Logbook Association (RLBA), the self-regulatory body for property logbook providers, has called on the government to be more ambitious in its aspirations for property data and to empower homeowners to take control of their property’s data.
In its response to the government’s home buying and selling consultation, which closed on 29th December, the RLBA says the government must go further than its stated ambitions of “better informed consumers (through) improved education and transparency.”
“We have an opportunity to empower consumers to be more active and responsible participants in the proposed buying and selling process,” said Sally Holdway, director of logbook company HOP and the RLBA’s head of buying and selling.
“We need homeowners to participate digitally in the home buying and selling process and ultimately to be empowered to be the controller of their home’s data.”
The RLBA’s ambition is achievable via the data landscape outlined in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Data (Use and Access) Act, which envisages data owners becoming self-sovereign within a world of accessible but permissioned data, Holdway added.
The RLBA is calling for homeowners to be given the right to access all public and private data about their home held on public or commercial servers, with the right to use recognised digital tools, such as logbooks and digital sales pack products, to access and manage that data. Where information about a property is generated as part of a sale, such as a search or a survey, access to the information must be restricted to participants in the sale and the rights to the information transferred to the owner on completion, the RLBA added.
Where information doesn’t yet exist in a recognised FAIR data format (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable), such as searches, surveys, gas safety certificates and EPC data and certification, the bodies that manage the data must be given timetables by which it will be digitally accessible, the organisation said.
Nigel Walley, chair of the RLBA and CEO of logbook company Chimni, explained:
“Empowering consumers does not mean impacting or diminishing the roles of the agent or the conveyancer in the process. By empowering consumers to be better prepared to sell, we will be creating a generation of sellers and buyers who are digitally empowered to be better clients at every stage of the process.”
The RLBA believes digital property logbooks are the only mechanism supporting a homeowners right to control their own data in the property sector. The organisation wants homeowners to be “self-sovereign” around property data, and to be “active and empowered participants” in a digitised sales process.
